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Revision as of 20:27, 4 August 2022
Superhero.
Originally from Cali, now in Rhode Island. It's cold here...
jk, IDK what cold is.
Carmen Clark was born to Kyle and Agnes Clark, a relatively normal couple based in the San Fernando Valley, CA. Carmen, the middle child of three siblings, found herself in the same position as many middle children do: she struggled to stand out amongst her siblings. She excelled at school, and she was well-behaved and polite, but since she wasn't the oldest or the youngest, despite her parents being attentive and loving, and doing their best to divide their time and attention equally among the three siblings, Carmen was often the background sibling.
Before she turned 15, that is.
A short time after her 15th birthday, Carmen began to experience frequent, intense fevers, the duration and severity of which only increased as time went on. Unlike her siblings, whose mutant abilities had manifested without issue, Carmen would endure a full year of debilitating fevers, while her increasingly concerned parents and doctors did everything that they could to find answers. The fevers would continue until shortly after her 16th birthday, when Carmen spontaneously combusted and nearly burned down the house.
Carmen would spend the rest of her 16th year in a fire containment suit, while her grandmother took her under her wing and helped her to learn to control her new powers. Then, things began to change.
She was no longer the background sibling. Now, Carmen's presence was LOUD. Her once-blonde hair was now a glowing neon violet, and similarly colored flames were constantly venting from her eyes.
She was now almost impossible to overlook.
Before long, Carmen and her siblings (dubbed the CC's by their parents) were grown, graduated, and ready to set out on their own. Carmen followed her siblings to UCLA, where she earned a degree in computer science and even managed to land a job at a tech startup immediately after graduation.
But the life of a Silicon Valley engineer turned out to be anything but the life she was looking for. For starters, not only did Carmen have to wear a power suppressor at home so she could avoid burning her apartment down, her boss insisted that she wear one when she was in the office. Once again, Carmen was muted. Nevertheless, she managed to stick it out for several years, despite her growing restlessness.
Eventually, Carmen would leave her career behind to take up superheroics. She did so against the advice of her friends and family, each of whom reminded her that she was living in California, and that her powers weren't exactly well-suited for the area.
But Carmen was determined. She took firefighting courses, and she learned the best ways to apply her powers for both fire prevention and fire fighting. Carmen also did her absolute best to avoid engaging in combat against supervillains in any parts of the state that were particularly prone to burning.
In spite of her efforts, Carmen would eventually come toe to toe with a villain whose powers represented the worst case scenario for her: a radiation-based villain who bathed her in ionizing radiation, inadvertently triggering Carmen's thermonuclear state for the first time.
She only narrowly avoided sparking a forest fire... by launching herself into the Santa Monica Bay. Which she may have boiled a little bit.
As a result, California's Department of Fish and Wildlife successfully petitioned the FBSA to revoke her license. Carmen would no longer be allowed to engage in superheroics within the state of California.
Carmen was unwilling to just give up her superhero career.
If she wasn't allowed to be a hero in California anymore, she decided she would become a hero somewhere else. Paragon City seemed like the logical choice, given the colder, damper climate and the fact that the city was absolutely teeming with all manner of metahuman.
So she packed her bags and moved to the other side of the country, to Paragon City, where she settled into a small apartment in King's Row and immediately re-registered using the moniker Retroburn.
Carmen began taking work from Hero Corps to help pay the bills, as any savings she had left over from her time in Silicon Valley were spent paying off her fines back home.
Carmen's mutation causes her body to passively absorb radiation, which she metabolizes into energy that she can use (either passively or deliberately) to ignite the air around her.
Her energy levels are constantly building, which forces Carmen to vent small amounts of it. The coloration of her fire is due to the burning of certain substances that her body naturally produces.
In addition, a secondary mutation not only renders Carmen immune to the effects of intense heat and flame, but also causes her body tissues to undergo a process that she refers to as "tempering" based on her level of heat. The hotter Carmen burns, the more durable she becomes, allowing her to absorb and deflect things that might otherwise cause her grievous injury.
Carmen is also capable of flight through the use of controlled explosions. She propels herself through the air by violently igniting the air beneath her hands and feet.
Carmen's powers are not without their drawbacks, however. Carmen has no way of controlling how much radiation her body absorbs short of fleeing to a safe distance from radiation sources, and absorbing too much radiation in a short period of time can cause her body to enter a "thermonuclear" state in which she is a danger to everything and everyone around her, due to the intense heat that radiates from her body in this state.
Carmen has latent magical abilities that she inherited from her mother's side of the family. She isn't particularly interested in exploring them further than she has, and to date she has only learned a simple clothes-changing cantrip.
Carmen doesn't actually make any money off of her Instagram account, despite her popularity.